The Courtyard/Garden transformation ~ part 1

This post is not for the faint of heart so if your not prepared to see some really catastrophic pictures of a courtyard/garden, I suggest, you turn back NOW ! 🙂

And now for the brave amongst you : For those of you who are not living/have never lived in the middleEast, summers can be a very very very HOT period and this period lasts for nearly 6-7 months in Dubai. Ofcourse “WE” are saved and happiliy sheltered in our air conditioned homes, cars and malls but not so for our gardens/courtyards. Thats the time when most damage takes place on the garden furniture, pots and plants/grass. I mean, c’mon who can withstand + 45*C EVERYDAY for 5-6 Months ????? And hence the courtyard/garden is left to the mercy of Allah swt like everything else in our lives. For the past couple of years, I used to provide shade to my plants using these huge plastic sheets, much to the annoyance of my neigbour, and later, I just gave up

I must confess, the coutyard does tend to become a makeshift area for dumping undecided furniture + laundry area + kid bikes + virtually EVERYTHING !!!

However, this year, with all the visitors expected at Eid and with all the enthusiasm I have bubbling inside me to go the DIY way, I decided to completly “TRY” and transform alittle of the garden so that we could atleast have a nice hot cuppa coffee on Friday mornings in the courtyard or host half a dozen bbqs for our friends.

Here are the shocking pictures of the sun damaged and neglected courtyard from different angels :-

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Ofcourse this is just a larger view of the garden. And quite frankly theres more that does NOT meet the eye in these pictures but I am sure with detailed pictures, it will be quite apparent what a HUGE task, I have, athand. I decided to tackle the task, area by area, project by project. In the next few posts, I’m going to share how and what were my DIY projects in the way of upgrading or atleast uplifting the garden. But first, the most important job : getting rid of all those old, worn out, unused, overused and useless pieces of buckets, tanks, bikes, furniture, bbq sets and heaps more.

That alone took us an entire day ! You can imagine WHY ! This was the first van that went to the recycling center.

Thats our gardener giving us a hand at loading the van with all the unwanted stuff. It took an entire day and two truck loads to finally get rid of all the that treasure 🙂

I was too exhausted to take pictures of the second truck !

The transformation, is coming about excellently, piece by piece and area by area. To read more posts, please “follow” or “subscribe” to me and you’ll see how the progress is coming about.

I am linking this post to the following linking parties. Not only will I be glad to get some feedback, some much needed encouragement but I would love to have some wonderful ideas and advice given to me too.

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6 thoughts on “The Courtyard/Garden transformation ~ part 1”

Hard work Naush but it will be so much worth it when its done with a beautifull courtyard to sit and relax in we are very similar here unfortunatly not the weather though har har as we are redesigning our garden and at the moment its trashed a bit of a shock to say the least as we had a beautiful English cottage garden but it had got overgrown so instead of thining it out we have decided to go the whole hog and re do it mud mud and more mud Lovely take care Luv Sue x

It must be very difficult keeping plants alive in that heat. I look forward to seeing the patio transformation. Thank you for linking to the Open House Party and I hope you will share your new patio at the party

Naush Samama

Welcome to my blog

So glad your here. My name is Naush & this is where I showcase my creative chaos

I am an eco-friendly visual artist and upcycle crafter, better known for the use of unconventional materials in my artwork, including the use of wire, wood, cardboard, cement, fabric, plastic and paper. I live in Dubai with my husband, three teenage sons and nine cats, all of whom will vouch for my messy craft room and nocturnal life. I thrive on coffee and crafts and I am a self-confessed borderline craft-supplies-hoarder who believes that a little creativity with some paint and a glue gun can do wonders with any mundane object.